House of Blues

remotely worried about
punishment. I am not quite sure why, but I have some ideas. There is
the possibility that I was just dumb, unable to think that far ahead.
But I have considered this a lot—I have had much occasion to ponder
it, as the day's subsequent events will show—and I think not. I
think that I believed I could do what I wanted with impunity,
especially where Evie was concerned, and I think I had good reason
for so believing. Why, I really do not know.
    I am over thirty now, and that was in the early
sixties, before feminism got going, I think. I wonder if it was
simply that I was male (a poor specimen in my father's opinion, but
male nevertheless) and therefore privileged. It doesn't seem
possible, and yet how else to explain it? Reed was self-censored, so
far as I can tell. She never did anything wrong. Evie did everything
wrong. But surely not everything because it is not she who would have
sailed the hat, and then there was the other thing. The thing that I
call The Thing.
    The stop we had to make was at the restaurant. I
don't know why we stopped that particular day, but it wasn't unusual
for us all to stop there on a Sunday, or any other time when Dad had
business to do. And Easter was a huge day, a day when all those who
didn't have to go to their grandparents' got to have Shrimp Arnaud at
Arnaud's, or Bananas Foster at Brennan's, or Oysters a la Foch at
Antoine's, or Crab Hebert at Hebert's.
    While we had to eat ham.
    Not only that, we weren't about to get any ham for at
least an hour.
    We were starved. But when we went in the kitchen at
Hebert's, the cooks made over us and gave us tidbits, especially, one
named Albert, an old black man, or maybe he wasn't so old, but his
hair was starting to gray and he was slightly stooped.
    Albert had a gentleness about him, a maternal
quality, it seemed to me, though that sounds contradictory
considering his sex. I felt—I don't know—loved (I guess I can say
it, I'm half drunk) in his presence, in a way I never did in the
presence of either of my parents. Albert simply was more gentle,
there's no question, by temperament, but I think perhaps there might
be more to the story.
    All parents say they love their children, and no
doubt they believe they are telling the truth (though I never saw the
slightest evidence that either of our parents loved Evie, unless you
count the fact that they took care of her in material ways). No doubt
they would have felt bereft if their children had died (though Evie
might as well have, and I am not sure that anyone missed her after
she left, except for me, and I was always attracted to her. She was a
sexy child, I think—can children be sexy?).
    But I think that many parents, ours included, simply
do not like children much. Do not like the noise they make, their
high level of energy, the way they are always in perpetual motion—and
the care that must be taken of them. In a word, they find children
inconvenient, and an inconvenient child like Evie they particularly
dislike, though they may "love" her in some vague way that
probably has more to do with parental ego than otherwise. (I guess I
must have thought of all this because Reed was so very convenient; so
calculatedly convenient; so obedient and helpful, such a little
volunteer. In short, being intelligent and being the youngest, in a
perfect position to observe, she figured out what would fly.)
    Albert, I think, actually did like children as a
class, something I hadn't seen before. He was even nice to Evie,
which was something of a taboo in our family. Whenever we saw him, it
almost made me rethink her: If Albert liked her, could she really be
so—bad?
    Mother always said the way he treated us was just his
way of sucking up to her and Daddy, which hurt my feelings. But not
for long because even in my seven-year-old heart I knew it said a
great deal more about her worldview than about Albert. The way Albert
was, the way he felt, the intuitive sense I got from him—his vibe,
his energy, his presence (I don't know what to call it because there
isn't a word for it)—this feeling belied what she said.
    Albert had the job in the restaurant of making the
pommes de terre soufflés. This is a dish served at most of the great
New Orleans restaurants as an hors d'oeuvre, sometimes, though not
always, with béarnaise sauce. At Hebert's the pommes are always
served plain.
    Once, before the day of The Thing, Albert showed me
the whole procedure. First he'd slice his potatoes